Schools still wrestling with budget deficit
Published on April 11th, 2001
STONEHAM , MA- One new face and one empty seat adorned the table at last week's School Committee meeting.
Newly elected member Dan Moynihan put in his first night of official duty, having won the seat vacated by Mary Carey.
Former School Committee member Mary Pecoraro left behind an empty seat as she moved on to the Board of Selectmen, a position she won in last week's election. Her vacated seat now becomes an appointed one for the duration of the term. Appointment will be made by a majority vote of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen. A date for the appointment vote has not yet been set.
Budget update
School Superintendent Dr. Joseph Connelly presented the School Committee with some good news regarding next year's proposed school budget.
Going into Thursday's meeting, draft three of the fiscal year 2002 budget totalled $20,343,081, an 8.8 percent increase over the current year. Since the town has indicated that it can afford $19,800,000 for the schools next year, additional revenue and cost savings continue to be investigated.
Fortunately, according to Connelly, Stoneham just got word of approximately $100,000 in grant money it is being awarded.
Taking this into consideration, he suggested that the budget be cut by another $90,000, further closing the gap between the town and school numbers.
The School Committee approved the reduction, bringing the proposed budget to a total of $20,253,081, or 8.4 percent over the current year.
One area that continues to be researched is rental of the East School building on Beacon Street. If this action is successful, that would mean another $90,000 to $100,000 in revenue and the gap could dwindle to $363,000.
Connelly is also hopeful that acting interim Town Administrator Ron Florino will find additional money to supplement the School Department budget.
A recent enrollment projection review continues to support the figures developed last October by the school administration. Connelly reported that the very detailed fiscal 2002 enrollment projection from last fall is still on target with only a 15 student projected reduction in the latest analysis.
Since the school budget is based on enrollment projections, Connelly advised that the numbers "do not, at this point, indicate that we have to adjust our proposed budget at all."
Redistricting
Elementary school redistricting was also reviewed on Thursday as the new Central School building continues to target a Sept. 1 opening date.
One of the School Committee's main goals in the redistricting plan was equitable schools across the board. In contrast to recent years, where Central School serviced over 600 students and Colonial Park had significantly less than half that, each of the town's four new elementary schools will accommodate roughly 350 students.
In addition, the plan supports the assumptions that each elementary school house pre-K to grade five, class sizes be maintained throughout town and at all grade levels, each district be established by geographical boundaries, each district support the elementary age population for that district, and each district have access to similar services and resources.
After subsequent review and additional suggestions, the redistricting plan presented last year was upheld.
"We're calling for these four districts to be implemented as originally reported one year ago," Connelly said.
The only change to the numbers is 19 special education students to be included at the new Central School which will continue to house inclusion classes at each elementary level. This number was erroneously left out of the original plan. Those students will be the only ones out of district.
But one Tamarock Terrace resident disagreed with the plan, saying that many of the students redistricted from the Central School to Colonial Park hail from the Spring Street area, and thus have no easy access to the Avalon St. School.
"That's not an easy route to take," he described. "The plan wasn't all that well thought out taking citizens in that area into consideration."
He also charged that building a new school at the Colonial Park site was a poor choice since "the Colonial Park area did not have enough kids to support a school."
While Connelly agreed that the plan is not perfect, he did emphasize that the town voted for neighborhood schools and that there was no other choice of neighborhoods to redistrict to Colonial Park.
"This is not an ideal plan, however...it appears to be the best plan for a difficult situation," Connelly said.
New Colonial Park Principal
Besides new students, Colonial Park School, has something else to be proud of when it opens its doors next September. Stoneham resident Maureen Burke has been chosen as full-time principal at Colonial Park.
An employee of the Stoneham school system since 1987, Burke has been a classroom teacher, lead teacher, Principal of the North School preschool program, and currently is Assistant Principal at Central School and part-time Principal at Colonial Park School.
Burke was chosen from a pool of 38 candidates and will begin her new post this summer.
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